Employing Heritage in The Poetry of Mustafa bin Zikri

Abstract

This study deals with the phenomenon of intertextuality in Arabic literature theposition of Arab critics towards it, and the extent of this phenomenon’sprevalence in Libyan poetry, while reviewing some poetic models that indicatepoets’ invocation of the religious and literary heritage in their poeti productionCritics have unanimously agreed that intertextuality is a modern and ancient phenomenon. The ancients knew this phenomenon and practiced it in their poetry. Critics also dealt with it in their studies, but they did not call it “intertextuality.” Rather, they dealt with it under other names, the most prominent of which are: plagiarism, theft, telepathy, and other names that indicate the interpenetration of texts with one another, and the poets’evocation of some ancient texts and monuments in their poetry. Libyan poets, like other poets, spread in their poetry many forms of intertextuality, especially religious intertextuality, by virtue of the religious culture that spread in Libyan society, and the most prominent among them ithe poet Mustafa bin Zakri.